NYTimes
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/24/opinion/24mon1.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=sloginElection officials hate to admit how vulnerable their voting systems are to errors and vote theft. The Ohio and Colorado secretaries of state, however, have recently spoken openly about the weaknesses of the voting machines used in their states — and are pushing to get them fixed. Election officials in other states, whose voting machines have similar vulnerabilities, should follow Ohio’s and Colorado’s lead.
Jennifer Brunner, Ohio’s new secretary of state, has been working to promote fair and honest elections, with particular attention to voting machines. She commissioned an expert study of the five kinds of voting systems used in Ohio. Her report, released on Dec. 14, revealed serious security flaws that could put the state’s elections in jeopardy.
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In Colorado, Secretary of State Mike Coffman has decertified electronic voting machines and tabulating machines. Acting in response to a court ruling, Mr. Coffman confirmed critics’ charges that the machines are unreliable and too vulnerable to tampering. One model, he found, could be disabled if a voter passed a magnet over it. In another model, he found a 1 percent error rate in counting ballots, which is clearly unacceptable.
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Election officials across the country should be asking the sort of tough questions Ms. Brunner and Mr. Coffman have. In 2000, the nation only confronted the flaws in its voting technology after a presidential election was irreparably harmed. With just under a year to go before the next presidential election, the time to fix these problems is now.
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